There is an increasing need for mobile high-speed communication systems, particularly wireless terminals, to provide a variety of services such as phone calls, Internet, television, photo sharing, email and downloading music files. Adequate coverage with wireless terminals is now provided to most populated areas of the world.
A wireless base station may be required for many types of wireless communication. For example, wireless base stations (macrocells) and microcell base stations (microcells) can be communicatively coupled to mobile communication networks. Small base stations with low output power with a narrow range with a radius of several approximately several meters or several tens of meters have been developed. Among these small base stations, those that are widely used in individual households to connect to a mobile communication network via a general communication line (i.e., broadband lines such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) are referred to as “femtocell base stations”.
A femtocell base station can be installed in a location such as indoors or behind a building where a user may wish to use a wireless terminal. Femtocell base stations can communicate with a mobile communication network and can be installed by a user. Because a communication area can be established in a specific spot (femtocell) within a macrocell even in an urban area, users can improve communication speed by installing femtocell base stations therein. Consequently, it becomes possible to receive the same services provided by conventional base stations—such as telephone calls, email functions, SMS, and web browsing—at higher communication speeds.
During an idle handoff from the femtocell to the macrocell, the wireless terminal may transmit a series of information required for the idle handoff to the macrocell base station serving as a destination for the idle handoff. The wireless terminal and the femtocell base station acting as a source for the idle handoff may not exchange information regarding the idle handoff to the macrocell. Consequently, despite the idle handle off, the femtocell base station may continue to handle the wireless terminal as a registered wireless terminal that is location-registered in the femtocell base station. Thereby, the femtocell base station may perform unnecessary and pointless processes, such as providing notifications of information to the wireless terminal. In this case, the wireless terminal may be forced to respond the notifications. This may result in excessive consumption of the battery of the wireless terminal.